Mainstream Greek political parties have been “laundering” the anti-Semitic pasts
of MPs, Greek-Israeli financier Sabby Mionis said in an interview with The
Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Last week, the Greek expatriate, who is a
member of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors and co-chairman of the United
Israel Appeal’s Greek branch, was castigated by members of the far-right Golden
Dawn party over his unwillingness to appear in front a a parliamentary committee
to discuss a leaked list of European tax cheats. Maria Panteli, an employee of
his former mutual fund, was named as the holder of a multi-million-dollar Swiss
bank account.

Nikos Lekkas, deputy chief of the Greek Financial Police,
had accused Panteli of being a front for Margaret Papandreou, the elderly mother
of former premier George Papandreou.

Lekkas later withdrew his
accusation.

Mionis refused to provide testimony in parliament because of
his opposition to appearing before what he termed “Holocaust deniers.” Golden
Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris then said, “Members of the committee are, of course,
Holocaust deniers.” Kasidiaris also said that when Mionis “sets foot in our
country he will be brought to justice.”

Mionis told the Post, “Golden
Dawn are not the only Holocaust deniers on that committee.”

While
declining to name the MPs on the record, Mionis was likely referring to New
Democracy MPs Adonis Georgiadis and Makis Voridis, who he had previous attacked
in op-eds over their “anti-Semitic” pasts.

Last year, Voridis and
Georgiadis jumped ship from the right-wing LAOS party and joined New Democracy.
In 2001, LAOS leader Georgios Karatzaferis said that “the Jews have no right to
provoke, because they have filled the world with crimes.”

Voridis has
previously suggested that Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl may be a
forgery.

In an op-ed last year, Mionis wrote of the “transformation of
Greece’s traditional center-right party, New Democracy, into an extreme
right-wing party.”

Voridis, he wrote, had ties with author Kostas
Plevris, whose book Jews: The Whole Truth encouraged “Greeks to execute the Jews
of the country in 24 hours.”

While saying that Israel needs to cultivate
strong ties with his former home, Mionis told the Post that “we need to be
mindful who is coming afterwards and who [will come] after [Greek Prime Minister
Antonis] Samaras.”

“I can tell you there are anti- Semitic politicians
across the political spectrum in Greece, including the governing party,” he
warned.

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